


When This Body Fails to Mend

by TooGoodToBeBad



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Divine Pulse (Fire Emblem), F/M, Fire Emblem: Three Houses Blue Lions Route, Mentioned Blue Lions Students (Fire Emblem), Near Death Experiences, Post-Timeskip | War Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), but nothing too graphic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-11
Updated: 2020-11-11
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:07:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,977
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27508090
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TooGoodToBeBad/pseuds/TooGoodToBeBad
Summary: For a brief, terrifying moment, Dimitri knew what it was like to die.An angry, white-hot pain stabbed through his stomach and seared his insides. The rush of blood in his ears drowned out the raw screams of his friends, and he could feel his strength bleeding through the massive, jagged wound. He could feel his soul leave his body, seeping through the broken skin meant to keep him contained.And then suddenly he couldn’t.Dimitri distinctly remembers dying in Derdriu, but no one else seems to have noticed.
Relationships: Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/My Unit | Byleth
Comments: 6
Kudos: 72





	When This Body Fails to Mend

For a brief, terrifying moment, Dimitri knew what it was like to die.

An angry, white-hot pain stabbed through his stomach and seared his insides. The rush of blood in his ears drowned out the raw screams of his friends, and he could feel his strength bleeding through the massive, jagged wound. He could feel his soul leave his body, seeping through the broken skin meant to keep him contained.

And then suddenly he couldn’t. 

In the blink of an eye, he found himself back on the battlefield, helplessly grasping at a wound that wasn’t there while his friends waged war around him. 

“Don’t tell me you’ve got a bum tum now, Dimitri,” Sylvain laughed hoarsely beside him. “We’ve still got a city to save!”

Dimitri nodded dumbly, still at a loss for words. When he felt a hand on his shoulder, he started at the contact and rapidly turned until he was face to face with Felix, who wore an unamused, sardonic expression on his face. “Keep your head on straight, boar. The battle’s not over yet.”

An uncanny feeling of déjà vu settled in his gut and gnawed at his bones when he found himself face to face with Lord Arundel, seated majestically atop a massive horse clad in dark armor. 

“So this is where I die,” the thought danced dangerously around in his headspace, a dirty secret that one shouldn’t keep yet couldn’t openly share. It taunted him, reminded him of his mortality, of all the ghosts waiting for him on the other side.

And then suddenly he didn’t.

He found himself staring down at the twisted, broken body of Lord Arundel while Claude yammered on about his eternal gratitude and whatnot. Dimitri couldn’t bring himself to care, not when he felt so out of place in the world he walked in.

Like a ghost. Like a specter.

But if he was indeed a ghost, he was doing an awful job at it - everyone still acknowledged his presence. He could still be felt. He could still be seen. Ingrid clapped him a tad too enthusiastically on the shoulder, Mercedes doted over his superficial injuries (while completely ignoring that there was an astonishing lack of damage on his torso), and Dedue mentioned Claude’s insistence that he throw a banquet to celebrate the Kingdom’s victory. Even Professor Byleth shared a small smile with him while they revelled in their victory. 

It still didn’t stop him from feeling like a ghost.

* * *

He tried his hardest to enjoy the banquet that Claude insisted be held in their honor, but that little knot of dread coiled in his stomach refused to unwind itself. Even as he watched Ashe and Ingrid try (and fail) to avoid tipsily flirting with each other while Sylvain danced with Mercedes and Annette braided Felix’s hair, the shadow of death still loomed over him. He pressed his gloved palm against his royal blue eye and let out a shaky, uncertain breath. The pain where his wound should have been still lingered faintly. 

“-and that’s why you’re just like Kyphon, if Kyphon was beautiful,” Ashe slurred drunkenly beside him while Ingrid’s face flushed weakly (from the compliment or the alcohol, Dimitri wasn’t sure). “Isn’t that right, Your Highness?”

“I need a moment,” Dimitri muttered and pushed his chair back. 

“Your Highness, are you feeling alright?” Dedue asked as he made his way to his feet.

“I’m quite alright, Dedue,” Dimitri replied and forced an easygoing smile. Dedue’s face was passive as ever, but the concern was apparent in his voice. “I just need some fresh air,” Dimitri continued. “I will be but a moment, so please continue to enjoy yourself.”

Before Dedue could object, Dimitri cut him off. “That’s an order, Dedue.”

The large man only nodded his head ever so slightly and returned to his seat. As Dimitri walked away, his boots clicked heavily against the floor of the palace and drowned out the noise of the dinner and the stern lecture Dedue was giving Ashe about public displays of affection. Despite the fact that he was stone cold sober, his head was spinning like a tornado that left him reeling and gasping for breath, and uneasy shivers creeped their way down his spine. He stumbled his way down an unfamiliar hallway and pushed past a large pair of doors to find himself on one of the many balconies in the palace. With his eye towards the night sky, deep blue and unreadable as ever, another trembling breath escaped him.

At the sound of gentle footsteps behind him, his shoulders tensed, and with a heavy and deliberate motion, he turned to greet the intruder. He found himself face to face with a shock of mint green hair and a wide-eyed gaze. “Professor,” he bowed. “What brings you out here?”

“You did, naturally,” she replied in the same even tone of voice that betrayed no hint of emotion. “You left the banquet in a bit of a rush.”

A nervous chuckle escaped him. “I did not realize I’d made such a scene. But I assure you, Professor, I am quite alright,” he tore his gaze from her and found himself looking back at the stars. “I just needed a bit of fresh air.”

Her footsteps were getting closer now. “I find that a bit hard to believe,” she hummed beside him. “If you need someone to talk to-”

“It’s not something I can just _talk about_ ,” his voice came out in a harsh and broken whisper, and he immediately flinched at the sound of it, even when she did not. “I apologize, Professor. I didn't mean to lose my temper that way.”

“Is it the ghosts?”

“Not the usual ones, no,” he deflated with a long sigh. She looked at him expectantly with those piercing green eyes, waiting for him to continue. “You’re going to think I’m being silly,” he replied softly.

“Try me,” she replied drily.

“I think I’m dead.”

The words hung in the air like a phantom. He’d finally put to words that unsettling fear festering in the back of his mind, but having it out in the open failed to make him feel better. While most people would be so visibly taken aback by such a statement, Byleth only blinked slowly. “You think you’re dead,” she repeated.

“I have the most vivid memory of me dying,” he sounded more frantic, and his grip on the balcony railing left his knuckles stark white. “I should have died a while ago. I felt it - Lord Arundel killed me. But I’m not dead.”

He let go of the railing and started to pace back and forth apprehensively. “I felt what it was to die, Professor. I felt the white hot pain of dark magic burning through my insides and leaving jagged and burnt flesh in its wake. But I’m complete, somehow. I’m still alive. And I can’t explain why, unless this is the strangest sort of afterlife that the Goddess above has deemed me worthy of. Nothing else could possibly explain why I know for a fact what it’s like to die, even as I stand here before you.”

In the stillness she reached out to take his hand, and he pulled away before she could grab hold. Her face remained passive and unmoving, but her hand found its way to his shoulder. “You seem pretty real to me,” she said with a tiny frown.

“Do you think a spirit would know if they were but a mere spirit? No flesh to call their own? No vessel for them to inhabit?”

“Oh, you know I don’t know anything about all of that,” she was smiling now, and it was a bright buoy amidst the dark waves of the ocean that buffeted against his sanity. “What I do know is that you’re alive and well, Dimitri, as you should be.”

“But it doesn’t make sense!” he pleaded, his voice breaking under the weight of an unfathomable burden. “I cannot even begin to describe-”

“Then don’t try to,” her arms were now folded across her chest and her lips were set in a tight line, and without her armor he realized how small and fragile she looked compared to him. 

The words died on his tongue, and a morbid, nagging curiosity continued to crawl all over his skin. It was eerily silent now, and Dimitri began to wonder just how far he’d wandered off from everybody else.

“I was worried this might happen,” her voice was a murmur now, as soft as the pale moonlight dancing across her features.

“That _what_ might happen?” he strode towards her, unable to stop the trembling of his hands. “Please, Professor. If you know anything-”

“It’s too complicated. You wouldn’t understand.”

“Then make me understand,” his voice was grave now, his words heavy and somber. “Please, Professor. I’ve been ill at ease since this afternoon, and nothing can convince me that this is not some twisted dream formed from the dying gasps of my consciousness. Even if you tell me I’ve lost my mind, that would be a much better fate than to be a walking ghost.” 

The nod of her head was almost imperceptible, but it was one of the little things he’d learned to catch over the years. She turned her gaze from him and towards the sleeping city before them. “I can see things. Call them outcomes, paths, consequences,” she mulled over her words carefully. “What you experienced was one of the potential outcomes of the day. You could have died today, but I saw to it that you did not. I…” she paused hesitantly and turned back to face him. “Undid that outcome.”

“So I did die.”

She looked at him with a wistful smile on her face. “No, you didn’t.”

“But why do I remember it so clearly?”

“I’m not sure,” she admitted. “This whole thing is tricky to navigate. Normally you’re not supposed to-”

“How many times have you stopped me from dying?” he asked, out of morbid curiosity more than anything.

“Not too many times,” she said after a pensive pause.

None of this made any sense to him, but her words alone were a bright clarity cutting through the fog clouding his mind. If she said he wasn’t dead or a ghost, that was all he needed. But something still ate away at him. “Why?”

The smile on her face no longer seemed sad or melancholy. He’d spent too much time trying to learn the difference between her smiles, but this one seemed fond. Affectionate.

“Because I chose to align my path with yours. Maybe it’s fate or destiny, but I intend to see this war through. And I intend to keep you all alive to see it through with me. Whatever it takes.”

She gave him one last pat on the shoulder before making her way back to the doors. With a small glance over her shoulder, she gave him one more smile. “Although I guess the easiest explanation would be that I care about you, Dimitri. Never forget that.”

“Wait,” he called out hesitantly before she made her way back into the palace. “So I’m not dead?”

“Far from it,” she replied. 

“So maybe we’re both crazy.”

She laughed something bright and gentle, the sound of it teasing at his ears like a sweet melody. “Maybe we are. But we’re still alive, and I think that’s all that matters for now.”

“Thank you, Professor,” he breathed. “You’ve put my restless mind at ease somewhat. I don’t understand a word of it, nor do I intend to. But your assurance, perhaps that’s all I need in the moment.”

The tiny smile on her face returned. “I’m glad to hear it. Now let’s rejoin the others.”

And when Dimitri returned and assured the others that he was perfectly fine, he almost believed it.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you guys liked this! Feedback and comments are appreciated!
> 
> This is my first time actually writing Byleth as a character and not just someone who has a line or two in a story. I hope she comes off alright, because it was (unsurprisingly) difficult to write her and give her a voice that was distinctly hers.
> 
> Thanks for reading!


End file.
